Deconstructing the Montage
In a great many cases what you and I as amateur video creators are doing without realizing it is creating montages.
That’s no big deal in itself but that montage will automatically evoke a certain response in the audience becuase they areconditioned to seeing them under certain circumstances.
Once you understand that and learn how to leverage that resonse in you favor by creating better montages, you can take it all to a totally new level.
Here’s everything you wanted to know about the montage but were afraid to ask!
Everyone’s Favorite Tiny Microphone – Here’s Why
If you have been reading this blog for any amount of time or have taken a wander about my website you should be aware that I don’t “do” gear reviews or news.
The reason for that is that in most cases I can’t really comment from a “hands on” point of view because I haven’t had my “hands on!”
The other problem is that camera and gear get released so fast these days I have no way of keeping up alone.
So having said all that… here’s some gear I use!
I spent a few weeks last month searching for a wireless audio solution to “run and gun” shooting for my wife.
It had to work with both her phone and my Sony camera and as I already said, be wireless.
Up until then we were using a Boya lav mic which although fine in quiet conditions meant dealing with wires and later noise reduction in software.
In other words all a bit fiddly and complicated.
The solution I came upon and am very happy with is demonstrated in the video below and I can safely say that video is very accurate.
If you are checking it out just bear in mind the unit comes in a couple of configurations depending on whether you want it for a Android Phone, an iPhone, a camera or all three.
Because of that I have the “Combo” version which has connection for all types of use.
Turn Basic Edits into Magic – How to Add Transitions in Movavi Video Suite
In years gone by I would definitely steer new users away from the standard preset transitions that came with most video editing software.
I am not sure why they used to categorize them or at least try to because you could pretty much place them all under the heading of cheesy!
These days there are a lot of transitions that come as presets that are actually quite good especially if you consider carefully where and why you are adding them and then adjust them specifically to your project.
Here’s a rundown of some of the transitions you can use in Movavi with an explanation of what effect they have on the audience.
How to Enable Magnetic Timeline in Filmora 14
This is just a quick video showing only one specific setting in Filmora but it is important to know.
How do I know? Because I fell for this one only last week!
OK so on the timeline of Filmora you have a few ways of controlling how clips behave when you add them or cut and remove them or portions of them.
The reason there are choices is because people approach their projects is different way so Filmora has to accommodate them all as best they can.
In the video below you can see how the Magnetic Timeline setting works and how can use it or not in your own workflow.
The reason I found this one was because last week I was editing a project and had to add a track for a title.
I added the track, dragged in the title then relaized it was the wrong title.
No big deal right?
I then deleted the title but instead of being able to add the right one I had to create a new track again because the original one I had added was gone!
I could not work out why the entire track kept deleting when all I wanted to delete was the asset on that track!
Of course I immediately got onto customer service because there was no way I was the problem here!
Well shock, horror… turns out I was the problem and had turned the Magnetic timeline on which intentionally causes this behaviour so, lesson learned.
How to Attach Objects to Walls & Ground in Filmora 14 Tutorial
A few weeks ago Filmora came out with version 14 of their video editing software and one of the new features was Planar Tracking.
In a nutshell Planar Tracking is the same as any other automated motion tracking in that you select something and the software tracks that thing’s position automatically.
After that you can attach titles or other assets to the motion track that was created.
Planar Tracking does the same but instead of a single point you can track an entire surface that standard motion tracking could not possibly keep track of.
You can see how it works in the video below.
Improve Any Audio – Adobe Enhance Speech v2
For quite a while now Adobe has offered their “Enhance Speech” service on their Adobe Podcast site.
This was their A.I. driven speech enhancement model that you could use to take low to medium quality audio and have it correct that audio to a better standard.
It could create a “studio sound” as well as eliminate a lot of background noise or unwanted qualities.
The free version offered no way of adjusting the strength of the correction so in some cases you actually ended up with a pretty robotic sounding voice.
However if you gave it pretty reasonable audio in the first place it did quite well.
Recently they released Version 2 of the service and it remains free.
Most likely this version is the result of the A.I. “learning” from the past year to improve its abilities.
I have tested it out with a few examples this week and I have to say it is getting much better.
It still misses the mark on atrociously bad audio but its ability to repair and enhance medium to good quality audio is way better.
It seems less likely to introduce that “artificial” aspect to the voices so for a free service it is worth checking out!
Create Spectacular Color Grading with Power Windows! – DaVinci Resolve
The original reasons for the existence of DaVinci Resolve as an editing workflow program were the Color and Fusion pages.
Resolve started out in life as a strictly post production software dedicated to color correction, color grading and special effects.
Of course these days it has expanded to a complete editing package but the power of those two original modules cannot be denied.
I personally don’t delve into the Fusion Page all that much because I have no real need for advanced special effects.
However when it comes to the color page I am all in!
One of the most common problems I have to deal with in the footage I am handling is inconsistent lighting.
I don’t mean going from bright scenes to dark or anything like that.
What I mean is scenes that have been set up poorly with regards to the lights so that I have portions of the scene over-lit and some parts under-lit.
The most common of these is that the person shooting got the subject exposed correctly but in the rest of the frame there are crazy hotspots or places where whatever was there has been lost in the darkness!
In that situation there is little that can be done in an overall sense without messing up the exposure of the main subject… until you find Power Windows!
Check it out in the video below.
Top 5 Essential Fusion Tips for Beginners – DaVinci Resolve 19
Casey Faris is hellbent on getting you to use the Fusion Page in DaVinci Resolve!
There is a reason for his insistence because that Page is one of the most powerful features of the overall Resolve offerings.
However as is correctly and repeatedly pointed out, it is also very confusing to look at for the first time!
So here’s a teaser to maybe coax you into taking a look at it.
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